Outlook Hints and Tips Customizing the Outlook View... 2 The Reading Pane...2 AutoPreview...2 Arranging the Inbox...2 Mail Folders...3 Customizing the Tool Bar...4 The Folder List...5 New Mail Options... 6 Creating a Signature...6 New Message Options...7 Message Settings...7 Voting and Tracking Options...7 Delivered and Read Receipts...8 Delivery Options...8 Cc: and Bcc:...10 Check Names...10 Creating a Distribution List...10 Outlook General Options... 12 The Preferences Tab...12 Junk Email... 12 Email Options... 12 Desktop Alert Settings... 13 Automatic Name Checking... 13 The Mail Format Tab...14 Stationary and Fonts... 14 The Spelling Tab...14 The Other Tab...15 The Delegates Tab...15 With the upgrade of your workstation to Windows XP, we have also installed upgraded versions of the Microsoft Office products. You are now running Microsoft Outlook 2003. This document will answer some of your questions about the changes. You can start Outlook by clicking Start/All Programs/Microsoft Office/Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. An easier way to start Outlook is to click on the Outlook icon in the Quick Launch Bar. After Outlook opens, it will put a small icon in the right hand side of the status bar. Through that icon you will receive notifications of incoming mail, or upcoming appointments. - 1 -
Customizing the Outlook View The Reading Pane To see the Reading Pane the pane that shows emails without actually opening the emails, click View/Reading Pane then click where you want it to be on the right or the bottom. The Reading Pane is pictured here, with the pane on the bottom. AutoPreview The AutoPreview tool allows you to see the first couple of lines of text of an email in the email list. To turn on Auto Preview, click View on the menu bar then click AutoPreview. To turn it back off, do the same thing. Below is a representation of the AutoPreview feature: Arranging the Inbox The default Inbox view for Outlook is to sort your incoming messages by the date they were received, separating today s mail from yesterday s, from last week s. - 2 -
This default view helps to keep the mailbox clean, but some would prefer a simple list of their mail, rather than a sort. The image on the left shows the default Inbox sort. In order to view only the simple list of mails in your Inbox, from the main Outlook window, click View/Arrange By/Show in Groups. This is a simple toggle feature, which turns off and on with the same keystrokes. Once you have turned off the feature Show in Groups, the Inbox will display a simple list of mail in your Inbox. Notice the many other options available for arranging Outlook folders in the image above and to the right. Not only can you arrange your various Outlook folders by the fields in the list above, you can also arrange by any of the columns in your Outlook folders by simply clicking on the column heading. Clicking more than once on the column headings alternatively sorts in ascending or descending order. The image to the left has the Show in Groups feature turned off. Mail Folders In order to keep your Inbox clean, you can create folders to organize incoming mail. To create the folders, make sure you are viewing your Inbox, then simply right-click the Inbox in the left pane and choose New Folder. Then just give the folder a name that makes sense to you. When mail comes in, you can click and drag mail into the folders. - 3 -
Customizing the Tool Bar Under the View menu on the menu bar, you also have the capability to customize your Outlook toolbar. Click View/Toolbars/Customize and then you will open up the window pictured below: The Toolbars tab simply lets you choose which toolbars you would like to display. The Commands tab allows you to add additional Outlook commands to existing toolbars. The Options tab also allows customization of the toolbars. You can choose to always display the full menus when clicking on a menu bar item, or Outlook can shorten up the menus for you, with the most recently used menu items at the top of the menu lists. If you have Show full menus after a short delay checked, the Reset button clears your items most recently used so that your use of the toolbar data resets itself. This might be helpful if you have an item that keeps coming up on your short list, but you don t need it anymore. Under the Other area, you can choose to view large buttons on the button bar by placing a check mark in the Large icons checkbox or small icons on the button bar by leaving it unchecked. The next 3 options you might find pretty helpful to have checked. When you need to change a font, and prefer to do so using the drop down menus on the toolbar, you can actually SEE the font type in that drop down box if you leave a checkmark in the List font names in their font check box. Here is an example (from the drop down font menu in a new message): - 4 -
The next checkbox under the Other area lets you turn on or off ScreenTips. ScreenTips are the very small yellow notes that pop up when you run your mouse pointer along the button bar. This is the ScreenTip received when the mouse was held over the Undo button on the button bar. The (Ctrl + Z) note describes the keyboard shortcut stroke that can also be used to undo the previous move. This is the actual Wide Latin font. Most of the work coming from the Tech Department is done in the Verdana font. The last item on the View menu is the option to turn on or off the Status bar. The Status bar is the bar that is along the bottom of a window. This is a toggled option. Clicking it once puts the check mark there, turning it on. Clicking it again will take the checkmark off, turning the Status bar off. The Status bar is simply information about the current open window. Almost every window within Windows has a Status bar. Many applications let you customize by turning on or off the Status bar. The Folder List How do I get to Public Folders? If you look at the bottom left corner of the picture to the left, you will see a row of small icons. When you move your mouse pointer over them, you can see how they will The Folder List change the look of the items above them. The Status Bar The first button will show your Mailbox, the next the Calendar then Contacts then the Task List. The last two are Notes and the Folder List. The Folder List button is where you will find the Coos Bay School District Public Folders. Click and drag here for large or small icons. - 5 -
New Mail Options There are many options available to you when composing a new mail message. Creating a Signature You have probably seen emails from other people that have their name, title and address or phone numbers at the bottom. To create a signature for your outgoing mail, from the Outlook main window: 1. Choose Tools/Options/Mail Format. 2. On the Mail Format tab click on the Signatures button. 3. Click on the New button. 4. Here you will give a name to your signature and click Next. 5. Then, after you have named the signature, you create the rest of the signature and click Finish. 6. After you click Finish, you will receive the dialog box to the left. It gives you one final opportunity to see the signature you ve added and make any changes necessary. From this dialog box, you can edit any existing signature, add a new one, or remove an existing signature. 7. Click OK to finish. Click OK again to get back to the main Outlook window. - 6 -
New Message Options When you are ready to send an email, there are many options available to you. Here we ll take a look at the Options button on the toolbar from the New Message window. Keep in mind that many of the options available in the Options dialog box are also available on the button bar or through other places on the menu bar. 1. Open a new message 2. Click the Options button on the toolbar. Message Settings The options that you will use most often are at the top of this dialog box: Importance and Sensitivity. Voting and Tracking Options A new feature in Outlook 2003 is the ability to send out an email and receive back results of a vote. In the body of the email, you would compose the message to include the ballot question. In this options window, you would choose the type of voting responses to allow the individual receiving the ballot. - 7 -
Place a check mark in this box to activate voting. The recipients will receive what appears to be a normal email, but in the upper left corner of the email will be new buttons allowing them to cast their vote. The sender then receives a return email with the voter s response in the subject line. The email received by the voter: Delivered and Read Receipts Also under Voting and Tracking Options, you can choose to receive notification to your inbox of an email being delivered or being read by the recipient. The receiver does receive a message upon opening the email saying that the sender has requested a receipt and the receiver has an opportunity to either send or not send the requested receipt. So, be aware that even if you have requested a Read or Received Receipt that you may not get a receipt if the receiver refused to send one back. Delivery Options There are several options available to the sender under the heading Delivery Options within the Message Options window. - 8 -
The sender can request that replies to any email be sent to more than just the sender. Simply click on the Select Names dialog box to choose the people who should also receive a reply. If you are constantly running out of room for emails, you can conserve space by not allowing all messages to be copied to your sent folder. Leaving the checkmark in the Save sent message to: box will assure that this message only is copied to your sent folder. Removing the check mark will prevent a copy from being placed in your Sent Items folder. Later in this training packet, you will learn how to decide if ANY or EVERY message should be copied to your Sent Items folder. You can delay the sending of an email to any specific day in the future by placing a checkmark in the box Do not deliver before:, then choosing the date to send the message. This can be particularly helpful when you will be gone for some amount of time and need to send out an email while you are gone. You can compose the email early then delay its delivery until the appropriate time. The Expires after: area allows you to choose a date that the email will be deleted from mailboxes where it has not been opened. This might be helpful if you have something you need to share, but only up until a certain date. The Categories area allows you to place the email into a certain category that makes sense for you. This is helpful when you like to use categories to organize your mailbox. You can use the categories included with Outlook or you can create additional categories of you own. Below is a picture of a mailbox sorted by categories. This mailbox only has one mail that has been categorized, and it was placed into three different categories. - 9 -
Cc: and Bcc: The CC: field is available for the sender to send a copy of a message to another person. The BC: field is the same, except that it sends a blind copy to other recipients. The BC: field is not usually available. In order to make it available for your use, from within a New Message, click View on the menu bar then click Bcc Field. After activating the Bcc: field, the field becomes available on your new message window. It works the same way as the CC: field, except that nobody except the sender knows that there is a blind copy receiver. Check Names When you are composing a message and need to send it to somebody to whom you have never sent a message, the Outlook address book will not automatically find the name for you like it will with recipients you have previously emailed. It is very simple to have Outlook check the names of similar recipients in order to easily help you find the specific recipient you need. Of course you can click on the To: button in a new mail message to access the Address Book directly. However, you can also use the Check Names feature to make the process of finding a name a little quicker. Simply type in a letter or two of the first and/or last name of the recipient you are looking for and click on the Check Names button on the button bar. Outlook will either just fill in the To: box with the closest name, or pop up an additional box with the 3 or 4 names most closely related to the letters you typed in. Rather than clicking on the Check Names button, you can also click Tools/Check Names on the menu bar or use the keyboard combination CTRL + K. Creating a Distribution List If you are regularly sending mail to the same group of people, typing in each of their names one at a time, you can make that process easier by creating a distribution list with those people as members. Then, when sending a message to them, you only have to enter the name of the distribution list. The distribution lists currently in Outlook are public lists, viewable and usable by everyone created by the Outlook mail administrator. The distribution lists you - 10 -
create will not be available to everyone. The lists created by you are private; created and seen only be you. To create a new Distribution List, click File/New/Distribution List. Right next to the words Distribution List is the keyboard shortcut to create a new list. The New Distribution List window is pictured below. It says Untitled on the Title Bar because this Distribution List does not yet have a title - but will when you save it. The first step in creating a new list is to add the list members. Click the button Select Members to get to the Address Book. Find the people you need to add to your list, double-clicking them so that their names appear in the Members box. After you ve chosen all members and they are listed in the Members box, click OK. Distribution list names will display here. After you click OK, you will see the list of names in the Names area of the window above. If you need to add a person to your distribution list who is not part of the CBPS network, just use the Add New button. There you can enter the name and email address of the user who will then be added to this list. A good example of a reason to create a list of external users might be a list of parents of children in your classroom. To finish the Distribution list, name it, using the Name: field. Make sure to choose a name that makes sense to you. Then, simply click Save and Close. To use the list, enter the distribution list name in the To: field from within a new mail message. To modify or delete the list, change to folder Contacts from the main Outlook window and the list will be displayed there for you to make changes. - 11 -
Outlook General Options Outlook 2003 is very customizable to meet your viewing and sending needs. This section describes some of the options available to you to set up Outlook to meet your personal preferences. Below are some highlights. The Preferences Tab Junk Email Junk Email is handled very effectively by Outlook 2003. It is very simple to turn on Junk Mail Handling. From within the Options window, on the Preferences tab, click the Junk Email button. The Junk Email Options window to the left shows the default settings every mailbox uses for junk mail. If you re still getting a lot of junk mail to your Inbox, you could try a higher setting. The High and Safe Lists Only settings are described to the left. If you are using the Safe Lists Only setting, you should be aware that anything from within the Coos Bay Public Schools domain will continue to go straight to your Inbox. However, any other mail will be directed to your Junk Mail folder. If you need mail from users outside of Coos Bay Public Schools to make it through to your Inbox, then you will need to add those users to your Safe Senders list. Email Options Right next to the Junk Email button, if you click on the Email Options button, you will again receive more options to control both the look and feel of Outlook as well as the specific - 12 -
operation of the Inbox, the Sent Items folders and other areas. Most of the options in this area will make intuitive sense to you, so this documentation will not cover every single option, but some of the highlights are listed here. For the most part, the options in this area of Outlook change default settings. If you made changes to email settings using prior hints or tips in this document, they will probably only apply for one time. In this section, you will change the look and feel of every mail, or every calendar item, or every task. Keep that in mind as you make changes. We do recommend when you have time that you take a few minutes to look through all of the options under Tools/Options to set up Outlook to work for you. If you have any hesitation about making changes, just send an email to the tech account for your building and in most cases, you will receive a response shortly. If your question requires an tech on-site visit, it might take a little longer, but clarifying questions are encouraged and should be processed quickly. Under the section in the image above titled On replies and forwards, we recommend that you DO include the original message text. It gets confusing when a person has forwarded or replied to mail and people aren t aware or don t remember the history of the conversation. Including the original message allows the full history of the email conversation to be reviewed. If you click the button Advanced Email Options, you will receive the dialog box to the right. As you re making changes to Outlook settings, don t skip this area. You will also find a lot of helpful changes here. Remember that changes in this section will apply to ALL future mails, not only the mail you happen to currently be working on. Desktop Alert Settings We have had questions about how to get rid of the small notification that appears in the bottom right hand corner of the monitor when you receive mail. Most people really like it, however it can become bothersome. Using this dialog box, you can make changes to that notification, disabling it all-together or changing the amount of time it sits there as you re notified. These options are available by clicking the button Desktop Alert Settings. Automatic Name Checking The way Outlook automatically places the name into the To: box of an email is by Automatic name checking. That option is enabled by default. We recommend that you leave this box checked. - 13 -
The Mail Format Tab Stationary and Fonts If you ve seen emails from fellow staff with cool backgrounds and you d like to know how they did it, this is it! In the Stationary and Fonts section, you can change the default stationary and fonts for all of your outgoing mail. In the Use this stationary by default area, you can simply choose the stationary you d like. If you need to preview them first, click Stationary Picker. It gives you the opportunity to view the available stationeries before you choose one. If you would also like to change the default fonts in your emails, or email replies, you can do that by clicking on the Fonts button. Notice to the left that you are able to choose different fonts when sending, when replying or forwarding. Choosing different colors may help keep message threads more clear. If you use message stationary, the stationary usually has certain fonts attached to it. However, you can set Outlook to use the fonts you have chosen above rather than the ones that come with the stationary. The Spelling Tab Outlook automatically checks for misspelled words for you. Sometimes it will replace them as you type, others it will replace only when you send or when you specify. - 14 -
The Other Tab The main option under the Other tab that you may want to configure are the settings for your Reading Pane. Under Tools/Options/Other, click Reading Pane. Within this area, you can change the amount of time that lapses while you re reading your mail that Outlook will mark it as Read. The box titled Single key reading using space bar allows you to use your space bar to move through your emails. The Delegates Tab Outlook allows you to give others the right to view or write emails as you, view or write appointments as you, as well as tasks, notes or contacts. All of this is done through the Delegates tab. You will then receive the dialog box to the right. As you can see, the only rights that EVERYONE has to this user s folder is the right to READ calendar items. Shown below are other rights available to the various folders in a person s Outlook profile. The idea here is that you add a person or more than one person as your delegates, and then give them the specific rights you would like them to have to your folders. Let s look at an example. To the left, the group EVERYONE, (which includes EVERYONE on the network) has rights to this person s folders. In order to see what rights the EVERYONE group has, highlight EVERYONE then click on Permissions. - 15 -
Under each of the folders, Calendar, Tasks, Inbox, Contacts, Notes and Journal, you can give a person or group of people rights. Those rights include the right to Review, the right to Author and the right to Edit. To add another Delegate to your Outlook folders simply click the Add button from the main Delegates tab. From there, you will be directed to the Outlook Address Book. Then you just have to highlight the user you are looking for and double-click on the user s name and choose OK. That is how they are placed on this Delegates list. Make sure you have double-clicked so that the delegate s name is in this box. Do not forget once you have placed a user on the Delegates list, you must highlight their name and click Permissions in order to give them specific rights to your Outlook folders. You might also notice a checkbox that automatically sends an email to the Delegate letting them know that they now have rights to your Outlook folders. Then just click OK until you are back to the main Outlook window. - 16 -